BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

According to historical evidence, administrators in the history were dictators, who haven’t had mental abilities or lateral thinking power to manipulate effective solutions and approach for problem-solving.  They tried to control the society in iron pits.  Religious leaders and administrators in the history fuelled the issue and ignorance of them without skills for problem-solving, ethnic issues expanded from generation to generation.

Although Mahavamsa attempted to interpret that ethnic issues in Sri Lanka began with South Indian invaders, before embarkation of Vijaya, Sri Lanka’s society divided as ethnic or religious basis as Yakka, Naga, and Devas in the history before Vijaya embarked on the country.  The differences in that society were based on religious or ethnic reasons, which were unknown to the present.  We have no written historical evidence on the society before Vijaya, but the story of Lord Buddha’s visit to Sri Lanka reasonably proves that Sri Lanka had violence between communities before embarkation of Vijaya.

The other significant point in relation to the history that Sri Lanka was under Western rules for about 500 years and the western rulers did not challenge the country’s unitary status and Portuguese supported King Senerat to crush so called Jaffna Kingdom and unite Sri Lanka in a unitary status.  They never allowed to annex Sri Lanka to India.  In Sri Lanka, 75% of people are Sinhala and only 25% consist of all other ethnic groups.  The responsibility of the government is to protect all ethnic groups not only minority groups looking for their votes to be in power.

In this historical background, Sri Lanka’s government requires to identifying root causes for ethnic problems.  Many independent thinkers look at this problem from the point of view of discriminatory feelings of people among minority and lack of economic opportunities to them in the current society.  Usually, the yahapalana analytical point of views is based on policies of political parties, which are quite biased towards the majority because the existence of them is determined by the votes of the minority.  The government should look at the independent point of views because the ethnic issue is not like short-term politics; it is an issue that is moving forward from generation to generation making massive destruction to the country.

Why the minority has discriminatory feelings? In the past political administrators introduced laws encouraging discrimination of minority for purely their own political advantages.  When compared to Western society, Sri Lanka’s political system always encourages discrimination of minority through laws and religious leaders always fuelled the issue supporting discrimination, which is fundamentally against their religious philosophy.  Politicians wanted to create the power bases rather than ethnic harmony.  Religious leaders wanted to take revenge rather than achieving Nirvana in doing good things.

When analysing Sri Lanka’s ethnic problem, nobody can ignore that the problem is fuelled by South Indian Politicians, who have vicious elements against Sri Lanka.  Generally, Tamils in Sri Lanka are much better off than Indian Tamils.  Economically, socially and educationally Sri Lanka Tamils are equal to Malaysian Tamils, however, Indian politicians attempt to use the issue as a vehicle to gain power in India aggravating of Indian Tamils using unknown problem in Sri Lanka.  Honestly, they do not concern about Sri Lankan Tamils whether they are in a better position or not.  Indian Tamil politicians are not concerned on Tamils in Malaysia or Singapore because they do not needs Indian supports.  This situation created due to the economic prosperity of Tamils in Malaysia and Singapore.  When Sri Lankan Tamils gained much higher economic status than Indian Tamils, then they won’t cry for Sri Lankan Tamils and they press Indian politicians to achieve similar economic prosperity.

To resolve the problem now, it is needed to forget the past and introduce anti-discrimination law rather than a divisive 13th amendment to the constitution or a new constitution which appear to be more divisive.  Under the anti-discrimination law, each and every citizen in the country are equal irrespective of any differences.  Racial verification law in Australia applied to every citizen in the country and nobody can even refer to a race with a discriminative motive.  Sri Lanka’s situation is completely different, it is allowed to discriminate minority by actions as well as words of mouth. Why the government cannot stop this discriminatory environment through encouraging a strong united Sri Lanka without differences.  For the minority to accept Sri Lanka’s government action, it needs government decisions on ethnic issues, which are transparent to everybody.

If the government plays a double game with the issue (like yahapalanaya), it would not be successful.  The government needs to especially address religious leaders and tell them directly and in an open manner that they are supposed to prepare people achieving haven or nirvana rather than working against achieving it through preaching for hate.  Lord Buddha clearly stated that for hate will not remove hate but love   will remove hate. In this situation what Western countries did is useful to Sri Lanka too.  B.F Skinner, a famous psychologist expressed that the concept of human nature and a good society through cultural design are the foundations of human behaviour.

Sri Lanka’s ethnic problem was created by human behaviour which has been influenced by the environment that is supporting to discriminatory feelings of the minority.  Human beings are both controllers and controlled.  When the government creates a good environment through a cultural design, ethnic problems could be eliminated forever and ever.

Politicians in Sri Lanka are corrupt irrespective of whether they are in government or in opposition, whether they are socialist or capitalists.  Tamil politicians are more corrupt than Sinhala politician and they discriminate their own Tamils based on various factors such as castes, regions, family backgrounds, educated place and many other factors using.  When the current government elected soon it wanted introduce anti-discrimination law but it was withdrawn without giving any reasons.  It seems that the government does not want to solve problem but want to continue the problem like a beggar’s wound.

How to create a good society or good environment in the country without discriminatory elements, B.F Skinner indicated that a good society could be created by a cultural design, which means that the society should introduce laws, rules, and regulations.  Controls are essential to make people more sensitive to the consequences of human behaviour. In Sri Lanka’s society it seems that human behaviour is too open in regards to sensitive matters, such as religion, race, caste and many other things.  The cultural design means rules, regulations, and procedures in the society.  Sri Lanka needs to introduce anti-discrimination law and variety of rules and regulations like in Western society to control human behaviour and eliminate discrimination feelings of minority ethnic groups in the country.

The division of Sri Lanka’s land, creating ethnic-based provinces would not support to change the human behaviour or discriminatory feelings of people.  Sri Lanka’s political parties still not considered a cultural design for uniting the country. It has already experienced that so-called ethnic solution under the provincial government was not successful, in fact, it has created serious fiscal problems to the country increasing spending and creating a huge budget deficit and pressure to spending process of country.  So far, we can observe that ethnic solutions coming from the West are too divisive and they have in mind that a federal system would be a solution to the problem but it is a mirage, a small country needs a unitary administration system with well-designed laws, rules, and regulations.  If any ethnic solution would be a long-term economic burden to the country, such solutions need rejection because the economy is the fundamental base of existing all the community of the country.

Many Western countries, South India and local Tamil politicians do not talk about cultural design for uniting Sri Lankan communities.  They talk and support for dividing Sri Lanka for increasing hate and strategies for extravagant problems in the future.  Leaders of Sri Lanka must have a base of thinking that any solution, which is a challenge to the economic progress of the country that should be rejected and the unitary status of the country should be an essential condition because it would help successful implementation of economic projects of central government.

What kind of anti-discrimination laws are needed by Sri Lanka?  This is also quite a significant issue that attracts wider debate and point of views from different communities.  The fundamental bedrock of anti-discrimination laws is to recognize the equality of human beings whether they are Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or any other, and also recognizes the equal rights for them.  Sometimes, anti–discrimination laws might challenge certain personal laws such as Thesawalamai Law, Muslim Law, Kandyan Law and Buddhist Temple Law and there should be required to adopt effective strategies to avoid possible clashes between anti-discrimination laws.  According to current legal systems of Sri Lanka, when there are problems within personal laws, judges apply common law provisions, which may be Roman law provisions, statutory laws or judge-made laws.  If the parliament passes a law in relation to anti-discrimination it would become a common law which could not be challenged by personal laws. Sri Lanka is to citizens of Sri Lanka, which means that there shouldn’t be any restrictions in access to land and doing business to any group of citizens whether they are Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim or any other.  Current personal laws badly discarnate citizens.